Aris was right about the important thing, and it took me a while to really hear it. What matters now is what happens next. The guilt, I came to understand, is only useful as fuel; past a certain point it becomes just another form of self-indulgence, a way of making the children’s suffering about my feelings.

They did not need my guilt.

My guilt did nothing for them; it couldn’t feed them or heal them or give back the years.

What they needed was my presence, my steadiness, my showing up every single day for as long as it took — and a man drowning in his own remorse is not steady, and is not present, and is not much use to anyone.

So I made a kind of bargain with myself, there against that hospital wall.